


Short-Circuit

by ASimpleArchivist



Series: G1 Love [2]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: (psst you're moving into the Ark), Affection, DFAB reader, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Kisses, Lazy Mornings, Lots and lots of kisses, Morning Kisses, Optimus hates mornings but he's an irreversible earlybird, Prowl's got a soft spot for you bc you treat him like a real person, Reader-Insert, Sleepy Kisses, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, bc 'adult responsibilities', but you gotta, he doesn't get that a lot, he just wants a break, might add more tags later I'm lazy, neither of you want to leave, so you can sometimes wiggle your way around him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASimpleArchivist/pseuds/ASimpleArchivist
Summary: A lazy morning in bodes an embarrassing incident for Optimus. (Sequel to 'Illegal From Here to Cybertron'.)





	Short-Circuit

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't get enough of G1 Optimus. It's refreshing to be able to write unabashed fluff every once and a while. Enjoy, lovelies.  
> Prowl shorting out (and just Prowl in general in this one) was kind of a little bit actually entirely inspired by 'And I Met You In the Rain', a Prowl/Reader fic which I highly recommend giving a read. It's beautiful. I'm not kidding. Prowl needs more love.

Waking up in the Ark had long passed the state of novelty, but still it offered a surprise around every corner. You never knew what was going to happen first thing in the morning after all the Autobots were beginning to stir, fresh from recharge and going about fueling up for the day. The fact that there were so many vastly different personalities mingling amongst each other always provided new experiences, mostly in a humorous context if you were fortunate enough to witness them.

Mornings like this, however, where everything was quiet and peaceful and perfect, you found you much preferred.

You had been the first to wake this time, which was a rare occurrence - Optimus, loathe as he was towards getting up in the morning to start each day, was an irredeemable early bird and always seemed to be waiting for you to wake up with crinkled optics and a soft, static-laced, “Good morning, sweetspark.”

Staying up a bit later than usual to finish up some reports for Prowl the previous night seemed to have tuckered him out more than usual.

You didn’t know precisely how long you’d been awake, but you knew that it still must’ve been pretty early because no one had come knocking on Optimus’ habsuite door (most namely Prowl.) Optimus was deep in recharge, his optics offline and his faceplate serene. His vents cycled in a slow, steady rhythm, the closest a mechanical being could come to breathing. You knew that if you climbed up on his chassis and laid your head against his windshield plating, you’d be able to hear the soft, incessant whir of his spark.

You didn’t, however, choosing instead to simply enjoy your position curled up next to his helm and bask in the indirect osmosis of tranquility that seemed to saturate the entire habsuite. You had always scoffed at the seemingly overdramatized renditions of couples in your rather impressive collection of general store romance novels (a guilty pleasure, and one you’d eventually discovered that Optimus shared, much to your surprise and delight), wherein one would gaze lovingly upon the other’s unperturbed countenance as they slept in the early, timeless moments of morning. Now...well. You were in love. It seemed that there actually were universal constants when it came to being hopelessly infatuated with another being.

You just considered yourself the luckiest human alive that Optimus reciprocated and seemed to, at the very least, tolerate your presence.

As though having sensed being the object of your thoughts, you heard his vents hitch in a telltale indication of him beginning to rise from recharge. His engine gave a gentle rev and his frame relaxed, and you reached out and began to stroke the high arch of his cheek when the faintest flickers of warm blue light escaped his optics.

He onlined with a hum, tilting his helm into your touch and smiling softly. “Good morning, sweetspark.”

“Morning, handsome,” you murmured in return, dropping your head and pressing a kiss to the bridge of his nose. “Seems like _someone_ slept well.”

Optimus hummed again, his denta appearing between his lip plating, shifting and reaching up with a servo to scoop you into his palm and deposit you on his chassis. He cradled you with his servos, the metal warm and unyielding against your body but still somehow comfortable. He nuzzled his nose into you, exhaling in contentment as his engine began to rumble in a low, familiar purr. You began to pet his brow, resting your forehead against his.

“What time is it…?” he mumbled, even though he was the one with an internal chronometer and not you. His deep bass at such proximity, raspy from misuse, made the very inside of your chest cavity rattle.

“Early enough Prowl hasn’t swung by,” you told him. “Late enough that I’m awake.”

He chuckled quietly, tilting his helm and pressing a lingering kiss to your clothed belly. “Good.”

You shook your head with a fond smile, returning the kiss to the space between his optical ridges. “You _do_ realize you’ll have to get up, right? You have that meeting with your chief execs about the Ark’s security today.”

Optimus grumbled in malcontent at that, burying his face deeper into your comparatively soft person as though in an attempt to hide himself from the day approaching. His digits tightened minutely around you and he began to murmur against your clothes, mostly indistinguishable because he’d drifted back into Cybertronian. He still must’ve been tired.

Your brow furrowed and you continued to give him affection, moving your hand to the side of his cheek where the seam for his battle mask resided. It had been a surprising development, after your initial experience with finally seeing Optimus face to face (literally) - while he was always careful of others being present unless you both were in his habsuite, he’d been unexpectedly open with disengaging his mask and just being himself around you. And while you had loved him despite never having seen all of him before, you couldn’t help but adore all the minutiae about him that you’d missed because of his insecurities.

He had dimples, shockingly enough. He had creases at the edges of his optics and while he still appeared young compared to some of the other Autobots, there was still evidence of some of the hardships he’d seen in the length of the war. There were subtle scars littering his face, barely-there raises in the protomass around his optics and across the bridge of his nose - they were invisible to the naked eye and from a distance (which most certainly wasn’t a problem, given his impressive height even compared to his Cybertronian brethren), but you’d grown familiar with the pattern of his face over the little time you’d grown familiar with it. He _did_ have one major scar, however, that could’ve been the catch of a blade along the edge of his jaw that could’ve pierced his mask once upon a time.

You were certain the other guy had gotten worse.

“...can’t we take a day off or…”

You blinked, returning your attention to the mech beneath you. There was a crease between his optical ridges, his lips pursed unhappily as he, evidently, sluggishly returned to English.

Your expression softened and you pressed a kiss to the furrow in his brow, making it disappear like the proper magician you were. “As much as I’d love to stay in bed all day with you,” you murmured gently, consolingly, against his forehelm, “and as much as I’d like to see you get some more rest, we’ve both got things we need to do.”

He seemed to perk up a little at this, recalling what you’d intended for your day’s schedule. His finials twitched subtly. “Perhaps I could accompany you…?”

You shook your head slowly, smoothing your palm over his helm. “I can handle it myself just fine,” you told him. “If I need help I’ll call Brawn - I’m sure a TV and a few pieces of furniture won’t be a problem for him.”

“But you could use my trailer,” Optimus suggested, ever hopeful. His optics were doing that thing they always did when he was trying to convince you - they seemed to sparkle and glisten at the same time, bright but just dim enough that looking into them didn’t strain your eyes.

 _Damned robot puppydog eyes_ , you thought, feeling your resolve begin to weaken with every passing second. You swallowed.

“Optimus,” you began, trying to keep your tone even (and as soon as he heard it, he knew he hadn’t a chance of winning), “I _promise_ I’ll call you if I really need help, but this meeting is really important. It’s putting _all_ the Autobots on the line, including me.” You quirked a brow at him inquisitively, returning a rather pathetic and vulnerable look of your own (the one you knew _always_ crumbled his will, every time, without fail - that’s why you rarely ever used it). “Don’t you want me to be safe whenever you’re gone?”

He seemed to resign himself to his fate at that, ex-venting long and low. His expression shifted into one more like what you were used to seeing on a daily basis, though usually you could only see his optics and the bridge of his nose. His mouth pursed minutely, optics focused. Then, looking at you, he melted again and pressed his face back into your front with another low grumble of his engine. “I would desire nothing more,” he said softly, a stark contrast to the even, strong tone that he used to address the other Autobots. He could be vulnerable, with you - he could be open and warm and soft because there was no war within the safe confines of your shared habsuite, only the both of you and the love you shared. This, you were pretty sure, was the reason he always lingered in the mornings, waiting for you to wake and waving off Prowl’s insistent commlink messages and even him knocking on the door, why he would always make sure he’d told you he loved you before leaving, why he seemed to become a different mech whenever he’d leave and return in the evening. He’d drop his armor at the habsuite door, leaving it there to pick back up in the morning, and you knew that it was heavy - so heavy, in fact, that you nor any other Autobot could ever hope to bear it. Optimus held himself to such high standards, always keeping himself strong and optimistic and driven in the eyes of his crew so they wouldn’t falter (if Optimus could keep it up, keep going, keep fighting, then they could, too). And, now that you’d seen both sides of the coin, you’d learned that it was _absolutely exhausting_.

You sighed quietly and shifted, kissing the corner of his mouth lovingly. He returned it, nuzzling your neck as best he could without pushing you away.

“How about this,” you started, snagging his curious optics. “You get through today without dying of boredom, and I’ll see what I can do about convincing Prowl to let you off tomorrow.”

It was not sparsely known in the Ark that Prowl had, for whatever reason, taken quite the liking to you and let you get away with a lot of things that he wouldn’t even let the other Autobots _think_ about (like sit on his desk and drink tea while talking to him about his day, for example). You seemed to draw out a more relaxed side of him which simultaneously surprised and relieved the rest of the crew (especially Jazz, who had gone out of his way to thank you numerous times for giving Prowl a little socialization outside of himself). So it wouldn’t be very difficult for you to convince him to let Optimus have a day to himself - for morale and rest to better his performance, undoubtedly.

Optimus visibly brightened at that, optics crinkling in the corner as he smiled and kissed the crown of your head. “That would be lovely, sweetspark.”

You grinned and sat up, tugging your hair out of the confines of the messy bun you’d wrangled it into the night before and attempting to comb through it with your fingers. Optimus took this as the cue for, finally, the day to start and carefully placed you on the berth next to his helm, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side. You were suddenly reminded of just how big he was, craning your neck back to look at him as he rolled his shoulder joints and stretched. You heard the tension cables in his frame creak and the metal groan where it scraped together. He let out a long, low ex-vent before easing to his pieces and wandering over to his desk. He picked up a seemingly random array of datapads, tucking them into his subspace methodically before turning towards the door. He lingered in the entryway once it slid open, tossing a warm smile over his shoulder at you.

“I love you, sweetspark,” he reminded.

“I love you, too, big guy,” you responded with an equally loving smile, giving him a playful little wave.

He returned it with an impish grin, then exited the room. The door slid shut behind him.

* * *

Optimus hadn’t considered himself a singer, much less a hummer. He’d been complimented on his voice before, but while he loved music (especially Earth music), he had never thought himself particularly talented.

Despite this, he found himself humming a song that always played on the radio station you always tuned into while riding in his vehicle mode, walking down the long, winding corridors of the Ark. He had yet to spot any of the other Autobots, though he figured the majority of them were either still recharging or in the mess hall fueling up for the day. The conference room was located near the bridge, and even though he was a few minutes late, he’d be able to make it there in no less than another minute.

Staying those extra minutes with you had been worth any scolding he’d get from Prowl.

He rounded the corner and stepped into the bridge, finding it just as vacant as the corridors had been. He made his way to the door of the conference room and, drawing in a long, steadying vent-full of air, he entered.

“Good morning,” he greeted, already reaching into his subspace and drawing out the datapads he’d need for the topics his officers would be presenting. He sat in his chair at the head of the table, setting them out in order according to division and urgency. “Apologies for being late, I misread my chronometer.”

Normally, he’d receive an equally weary, bored, reluctant ‘good morning’ from the other Autobots, quickly followed by small talk and meaningless exchanges before Prowl determined the start of the meeting, but instead all he got was silence. Optimus lifted his optics, puzzled, and was met with five shocked, frozen expressions.

He blinked. “Is there something wrong…?”

“Prahm, you…” Ironhide began, uncharacteristically speechless. “Your…”

“My what?” he inquired, confused.

“Your…” Jazz gestured towards his own faceplate, seemingly at a loss for the proper word. “You have a...”

“What? Did I dent my mask?” he inquired, trying to think to the past night. He hadn’t thought he’d bumped into anything.

“You have a faceplate, Prime,” Prowl stated, though even he didn’t sound as even and assured as he normally did.

“Of _course_ I have a faceplate,” Optimus retorted, raising an incredulous optical ridge at them. “ _Everybody_ has one.”

Finally, Ratchet - his savior, in more ways than one - spoke up with a wry, pursed mouth and vaguely exasperated optics - though, having known the medic for a very, _very_ long time, Optimus could see the faintest hint of amusement in them as well. “You forgot your mask, Prime.”

The Prime stilled, subconsciously raising a servo to his faceplate. The tips of his digit brushed his cheekplate, and all at once embarrassment and a sense of foolishness befell him. And it befell him _hard_.

The metal snapped into place over the lower half of his faceplate so suddenly it made the other three mechs jump. His cooling fans kicked on with a loud whir and he felt hot energon rush to his helm as he tried to think of a way to save face. “I, ah, forgot to, um...I didn’t mean for it to - it wasn’t intended-”

“Went all this tahm thinkin’ you were a half-face like Wheeljack,” Ironhide mumbled, almost dazed in appearance. “How didja manage _that_ , Prahm?”

Optimus, lacking any explanation he could’ve given, merely dropped his optics and his servos and fiddled with the edges of the datapads.

“Oh, for Primus’ sake,” Ratchet grumbled, “could we just get on with this already? So _what_ if he’s got a faceplate? Big fraggin’ deal.”

“You knew about it,” Prowl pointed out, and while his voice was calm, his doorwings were drawn up in shock. Optimus, upon a quick peek at his second in command, there was a concerning flicker in the mech’s optics, as well as the faintest wisps of smoke escaping his audials.

_Oh, dear._

“I’m his physician,” the medic responded bluntly. He cast a firm glance to the abashed Prime. “Sit down and let’s get this over with. I have tools I need to recalibrate so the next time you hooligans blow up a power plant, I’ll be able to weld you all back into one piece.”

Optimus did as he was bade, avoiding the others’ still rounded optics. He shuffled his datapads until they were in the order Prowl had written them, reset his vocalizer, and let out a quick ex-vent. “Uh...well, then. Shall we?”

A resounding _BOOM_ made Optimus flinch, as well as the clash of metal on metal and a high-pitched intonation of a forced shutdown. His shoulders tensed as Ratchet gave an almighty ex-vent and moved with a long-practiced grace to where Prowl had fallen out of his chair. Jazz was already picking the mech up with a vaguely worried expression.

“Raincheck?” Optimus tried to their retreating spinal struts, embarrassed to his very core. Ironhide, being the only remaining Autobot beside him, began to laugh. Optimus buried his helm in his servos.

 _Maybe this means I get today off instead_ , he thought. He was sure you were going to love _this_ story.


End file.
